Canadian Railroads > Montreal VIA Rail incident, October 16th

A colleague of mine was scheduled to take VIA #39 from Dorval to Fallowfield Monday evening, but it was involved in a trespasser fatality somewhere between Central Station and Dorval. The train was finally released after 5 hours, and he got back to Ottawa at 3 AM.

My friend had high praise for the Dorval station staff who stayed on duty and provided information, food and drink to all waiting passengers during the ordeal.

Until he told me about it today, I knew nothing about this incident. It was not reported anywhere as far as I could tell.

Ray

I see they take just as long to deal with these situations in Canada as in the US.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> I see they take just as long to deal with these
> situations in Canada as in the US.


The railway has little to no control over the length of time for the delay. That is determined by the police investigating the incident.
When I worked for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, we had closures of up to 12 hours or more while police investigated a serious crash. This was on a multi-lane freeway, with all lanes in one direction closed.
The public screamed and complained to us, but all we could do was refer them to the police .... who ignored them ... until a very senior government official dragged a very senior police official into his office ... and made the top cop watch 8 or 10 hours of videotape, non-stop, asking "what is going on now" every couple of minutes. The cops came up with a new "protocol" to clear incidents. But it still usually took about four hours.

Will MacKenzie
Dundas, ON



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/17 20:12 by thehighwayman.

Here in the US a fatality can easily cause 4 hour delays as the coronor has to be called and verify that indeed this chopped up body was hit hy a train and multiple agencies have to take multiple photos to cover their butts fir the lawsuits certain to follow.
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

Oh well, I thought Canada was little less litigious than the US.

Lets not forget that the crew may need to be relived and a fresh crew found. Add to the fact that the coroner may not be in the vicinity and that the police must determine that a crime wasn't committed. And it all adds up.